


Maternal Instincts

by Reading Redhead (readingredhead)



Category: Young Wizards - Duane
Genre: F/M, Meet the Family, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 07:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readingredhead/pseuds/Reading%20Redhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roshaun never got to meet Dairine's mother, but he has met the Motherboard. Ficlet set during WAW while Dairine and Roshaun are on the mobile's world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maternal Instincts

In the moment's shock of connection he feels all eyes are on him, and the pressure of their regard recalls to him the crowd beneath the palace, but this scrutiny is less threatening, though it goes deeper. He squares his shoulders and reminds himself he is a king.

He doesn't look to Dairine--wouldn't want her to think him afraid--but he knows through the spell that she's there, that she's alright. He'd know this whether they were working a spell together or not.

And then a voice, there, somehow inside his contact with the planetary surface, and not what he expects. Not like the mobile's voices. Like a mother's voice. _At last we meet. Welcome, child._

_You expected me?_ The startled question appears before he can moderate his thoughts.

Something like a quiet laugh, the impression of a grin. _I've known you through my daughter for an age of my lifetime, now._

He's never liked people who know more than he does, but this smugness, this maternal kindness matched with a maddening reserve, frustrates particularly. This planet speaks in his head with a voice like what he expects Dairine's might become, given the years: her fire mellowed, directed, steady, sure, but still burning. What must he seem like through her eyes?

_You know her mother is gone,_ she says, _her life-mother. But she is not motherless._ And here a rushing, welling pride in Dairine, her achievements, her accomplishments, floods Roshaun and astounds him with the facts of things he never even knew she'd done. He sees through the Motherboard flashes of a life that extends so far beyond the meager days he's known her, full of joys and sorrows unshared by him, unknown to him. He wants to know them from her. Somehow it seems wrong that she should hurt.

_We think so, too,_ the Motherboard responds. A pause, and then a solemn admonition: _Take care of her. Take care of my daughter._

The connection recedes; control returns. Roshaun turns his head to Dairine, encircled by glowing traceries of Speech-light, eyes half-open as though listening to something important just out of range. She smiles then, pats the ground upon which she sits. He looks to her, the awe showing plainly in his features, and admits, "She is…quite something."


End file.
